


“Then There’s The Appendix.”

by PenNameArtist



Category: Planes (Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump, i'm trash for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27981372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenNameArtist/pseuds/PenNameArtist
Summary: [Humanized Variation]Summary:The “Nick Lopez” specimen does not understand two things: romantic rejection, and withholding the truth - especially when that truth comes back to bite you in the side… literally. [AN: WHUUUUUMPFIC cuz I’m trash!]Rated Teen for injury, and maybe some colorful language.A.N. - A special one-shot originally meant to be within the ‘Origin’-verse by the wonderful OrganyzedKhaos, but this willprobablyend up more of a hybrid universe (similar to howThree’s A CrowdandFrostbittenplayed out). Arguably not canonical to either headcanons, though plausible all the same.
Relationships: Nick Loopin' Lopez/Blade Ranger
Comments: 9
Kudos: 6





	“Then There’s The Appendix.”

“Told you I could!” The younger male bragged, “First try!”

“I wasn’t doubting you,” Blade corrected him, standing from atop the stairs, “I was speaking upon the concept of self-preservation.”

“Pfft, I landed in one piece, didn’t I?” Nick replied - though for what it was worth, he did still have an arm clenched around his midsection. He’d come down a bit too far forward landing on his bike, and though his abdominal region took a beating against the handle bars, it was far better than having gone beyond them and into the concrete. His mantra? Any landing you could walk away from was a good one.

“Are you ready to head back then?” The older male asked, turning back to the way they came, “It’ll be dark before long.”

“Yeah sure thing.” Nick replied, dismounting to haul the bike back up the stairs.

“You good?” Blade reconfirmed, to which Nick gave a hearty nod.

“Eh, I might bruise, it’s nothing I can’t handle!” He chirped.

“Yeah, but your makeup director's gonna have a conniption...” Blade answered with a sly grin. Nick brushed off his remark, jumping back up onto his bike and pedalling off the way they came through the park, leaving Blade to trail after him.

The rest of their evening off went by without a problem. It was one of the rare times they got to hang out away from their work hours, and - for the most part - away from prying eyes. They opted to have dinner at home though, as opposed to going out; too many risks, too much gossip. Regardless, they made the best of it. Plus, it was fun to watch Blade try - and fail - at doing pretty much anything related to cooking. At least Nick was there to keep the place from burning down.

“It’s _rice_! Like...how can you mess up _rice_!?”

“Shut up, you know I don’t cook!”

“Well...at least you’re trying.” Nick concluded, wrapping his arms around Blade’s middle and pulling him close. He’d have put his chin over his shoulder to watch him try to cut vegetables, but...he couldn’t exactly reach, so he ended up leaning down over his side instead.

“Don’t cut your finger..." He warned.

“I’m not gonna cut my finger...”

“You say that now, and you will.”

“You know, you aren’t much help with that by pulling on my arm!”

Nick detached himself from the other’s limb, “ _Touche._ ”

\---

Though the evening was nice and uneventful for the most part (and the result of dinner turned out to be not just edible, but _good_ ), the night proved to be a different story. For the first time in quite a while, Blade’s PTSD decided to pay him a visit.

The sounds of gunshots and screaming suddenly dissipated from the older male’s mind, as he awoke with a start in the middle of the night. He clutched at his shoulder, shaking and hot with sweat from tossing and turning under the covers. His breathing was ragged and dry, like he was taking his first gulp of air from nearly drowning. He could tell Nick was awake, peering at him in the darkness. He crawled closer to face him, one hand on his partner’s shoulder, and the other against his cheek. He could already feel the tenseness and trembling of the other when the current reality came back to him, and without speaking, he pulled him into a tight hug, letting him be vulnerable, and letting him recover from the shock. Though it had been a little while since anything like this had happened, the need to reassure was always present, becoming somewhat routine in the younger male’s mind.

“It’s okay..” he told him softly, “Everything’s alright now.”

He could feel Blade’s hand grasping onto his shirt from where it lay against his back.

“Y...You’re too good for me…”

“Hey now,” Nick told him, and then, changing his tone into something wittier, he added, “I’m too good for _anybody_ , so count your lucky stars that you got me!” Blade chuckled at his remark - the kind of chuckle that was forceful and only trying to be a good sport. Nick smiled warmly at him, booping him with his nose.

“And I wouldn’t rather be with anyone else.”

Blade tilted his chin up so that his lips met Nick’s, barely pecking over the other’s mouth in a respectful understanding. And then he couldn't hold himself in as he stared at his face, and he pulled the younger into another tight, desperate hug. He held onto him like he was the last good thing in his life, like he would never see something so pure and devoid of darkness as this. Nick squeezed back, comforting, reassuring...until finally he had to pat Blade's back for his attention.

"Can't breathe…" he squeaked.

Blade let go of him enough that he could regain adequate oxygen levels, and then he pulled him back down for another kiss, stealing that breath back away. Nick snuggled down on top of him, legs straddled over Blade's hips. He squeezed his thighs into his partner's torso as he kissed him back, and as more followed suit.

It didn't take long for him to take it to a whole different level.

"M.." After a few minutes, he pulled away from his boyfriend's lips, "I bet I know what'll help get your mind off things."

"Nick, it's late, I'm tired…"

"It _is_ late...and that's why it's perfect." He purred - and as added assurance, he started to rub against his body in a very suggestive manner. He didn't have to get a verbal response from Blade - he could already feel his answer…

Thankfully, the rest of the night proved to be quite the distraction from his earlier torment.

\---

For the second night in a row, there was a lot less of that comfortable, sound sleep, replaced with the shifting and tossing of unrest - this time from _both_ parties. Blade again was brought to the conscious realm by his partner, who'd rolled over to lay himself partially across his chest, but he didn't seem to be awake himself; or he hadn't been awoken by the other, at least.

Remembering the situation the night before, and knowing the nightmare was over now, Blade settled back against the bedding, reaching up to lay a hand over his partner's head. He figured he had drifted back off by now...until he all but jammed his nails into his side clenching to him.

"Nick.." He tried to shift under the younger male, hoping to get him off him enough that he wasn't clawing at him, but Nick only pressed into him further - not to be cuddly, but in a form of desperation. He curled up against the other's side, pressed into the crook of his arm and cutting off blood flow to it as he did. Still, he didn't settle beside him. He only grew more distressed.

"Hey.." Blade, deciding he was either having his own sort of nightmare or that something didn't feel good, gently squeezed his partner's shoulder, shaking him enough to try and rouse him. The younger boy stirred uncomfortably but didn't seem to wake, only curling tighter against his side, legs tucked up to his chin.

Finally, though rather groggily, Blade sat up on the mattress to gently shake the younger awake. He was eventually successful, though the victory was short-lived, as Nick immediately turned away from him, rolling onto his opposite side.

"Ughh.." Was about the most intelligible noise he made, before going quiet again - finally on his side of the bed - and _presumably_ going back to sleep. Blade finally gave up too, plopping back onto his pillow, until the inevitable shifting of blankets beside him carried on. And then finally, the younger got up.

Though the bathroom light wasn't bright by any means, the suddenness of it against the dark room hurt Blade's eyes, and he held a hand over the beams in his vision until his pupils could accurately adjust. But as soon as he’d caught sound of the ragged gasping from the other room, he got up as well to assess the situation.

He found Nick curled up on the floor by the toilet seat, cheeks flushed and hair an uncombed mess of tangles hanging over his eyes. One arm held him steady against the seat, and the other was wrapped over his stomach. Blade set to getting a cold wash rag for him already, and some paper towels.

“Dinner didn’t settle right?” He asked.

“Guess not…” the younger replied tiredly.

After waiting a while longer for the rest of his nausea to subside, Nick shakily got up to return to bed. Blade left him a trash can and a glass of water by the nightstand as well, just in case.

Nick snuggled back into his partner’s side under the blankets, still fretful, but more relaxed than he had been before, and eventually he’d drifted back to sleep. Blade waited until he was sure that he’d nodded off before doing the same, hoping the other could stay asleep and comfortable now until morning.

...Wishful thinking, unfortunately.

Not an hour later, the older of the two was woken again to his partner’s tossing and turning, trying and failing to hold back strained groans. He laid himself against Blade’s body again, and his cheeks were _warm_ , unnaturally so even under the covers. He didn’t act like he was nauseous again; more rather, it seemed like he was in _pain_.

“Hey..what’s wrong?” He whispered to him in the dark, beginning to lightly stroke the uncombed bush of hair Nick had been both blessed and cursed with. Nick shuffled beside him again,

"I'm...fine.."

"Not buying that bull." Blade stated.

"It's just a stomach bug...it'll go away on its own.." Another clench; this time he held a fist to his mouth, presumably to keep his obvious pain unheard. But he was breathing hard, and his body was tense.

"Baby, what's going on?" Blade's tone shifted drastically from cold and strict to soft and worried, "You can tell me."

"It's nothing!" Nick protested, "It's just a...bug or something, or cramping from dinner, whatever!"

"I don't think I fully believe that." His partner said, sitting up again on the bed, reaching for Nick's side to assess the damage himself. But Nick shied away, and what's more when he turned on the bedside lamp to see, he sprung out of the bed and half-ran half-limped back to the bathroom, shutting the door to effectively lock him out.

Or he _tried_ to close and lock the door; Blade beat him to it though, knowing his antics and perusing him from the moment he moved away. With his foot wedged in the door (barefoot, mind you, and a bit painful against the bottom of the door) he proceeded to fight the younger male over the door's position, and Nick's general size and demeanor on top of his current condition made it a predictable battle.

"I-I told you..I'm fine…" was the last he had argued, before abandoning the fight in favor of aiming for a place to be sick again. Blade waited beside him, a hand rubbing his shoulder as another wave hit him.

He looked worse for wear than ever before, huddled in a pitiful semi-fetal position with as many limbs as possible pressing hard into his middle. Blade gave up fighting once he knew Nick had given up resisting, and he came to sit with his partner on the floor, backs against the outer wall of the tub, bringing him close. His cheeks and forehead were all but burning as he pressed against his bare chest, and tears were building in his eyes from the pain.

"I can't make it better if you don't tell me what hurts first." Blade told him, shifting over into medic-mode now. He fought his need to know exactly what was going on as soon as possible and to fix it himself - it didn't seem it would be that simple.

There was a sniffle or two before he got any reply,

"M-my side...well, like above my hip."

"Which side?"

"This-..uh...the right one." Nick stammered, still too tired and dazed to care to tell left from right.

"How long?" Blade asked, going through a mental list of his signs and symptoms and narrowing down a condition.

"...I didn't want you to worry…" He told him instead. Blade gripped his shoulder and asked again, more worried and more desperate-sounding,

"Nick.. _how long_ has it hurt?"

"Just...since yesterday. It felt like just a bruise or something! It didn't _hurt_ hurt until now...uhhg-" He clutched his middle tighter, "God it fucking _hurrrts_..." He crumpled lower against Blade's body, trembling with fever. Blade rubbed his shoulder as he slowly nodded his conclusion.

"I know, I know it does...And I don't want to risk this...We need to go to a hospital about it."

"What??"

"Nick, honey, if you're in _this_ much pain it could be really serious."

"No..no, it's not that ba- _ow!_ \--Hhnnn!…" a needle-sharp stab went through the lower right side of his body, sending another wave of pain - and tears - through him.

Blade took the younger's hands in his, squeezing it,

"We need to."

After a moment of contemplation, Nick silently nodded his agreement.

Without giving a second thought to it, Blade reached one arm under his legs and another behind his back, scooping the younger male off the floor. Nick probably would've kicked and screamed at the demolishing of his pride and dignity, if not for the pain he was in and the nausea and fever that left him huddling against the other for warmth. Blade had the decency to grab one of the smaller blankets for him too, before trying to rush into getting dressed enough to be presentable, and sticking the precious cargo in the passenger side of the car.

"I left Maru a message." Blade informed him, getting into the car and starting the engine. Nick fiddled with the AC until he had the heater on - even on a California summer night.

"I thought you'd go to him first."

"I was going to. And then I remembered he can only do emergency surgeries and--"

"Wh- _surgery_!? Nobody's fucking cuttin' me open!" Nick defended.

"I don't want to rule it out, I mean they might have to! We don't know."

"It's just a bug! … _right_?"

Blade was silent, pulling out of the parking space and shifting into drive.

" _Right!?_ " Nick pressed. Blade seemed to tighten up, lip drawing thin before he finally caved,

"...It could have something to do with your kidneys."

He didn't have to look over to see the way Nick's pupils shrunk at the mention. He was silent for a moment, sitting back in his seat, still half-wrapped in the blanket, thinking -- thinking, or being terrified. Or both.

"Why didn't I bring the trash can with me...or a bag…"

"I can pull over if you're gonna again. Not on the highway yet-" Blade said, as they turned the corner onto the frontage road.

The drive to the nearest hospital wasn't very long, but it felt like it was ages before they got there. Every other bump, Nick would curl up tighter, jaw clenched and hands balled into fists over his lap. Eventually, he ended up bringing his legs up to the seat and curling half-sideways towards the window. Blade didn't have the heart to reprimand him for the unsafe position. He was in enough pain already.

They must've gotten there just in time, because as soon as the engine was shut off, parked in a stall, things went from bad to worse. Blade would've planned a wheelchair or something to get from the car to the lobby, but at the unendurable agony that came from the younger's throat just from trying to get out of the vehicle, he just scooped him back up to carry him newly-wed style. Screw waiting.

Nick couldn't exactly stand on his own anymore. Well, technically he could, but he couldn't stand up straight without unbelievable amounts of pain. So he reserved himself to trying to stay composed from a waiting room chair, until finally they had someone to help. He'd neglected to take the blanket with him, leaving it for dignity's sake, but he really wished he had it back now. As Blade was up there freaking out at the front desk, he was curled up in his seat battling between either letting himself shake unbearably or letting his teeth chatter hard enough to hurt. Neither helped.

But finally, seemingly hours later, and after an agonizing amount of questioning, poking, prodding and pain-inducing, a conclusion was made - and thank God it _wasn't_ to do with failing kidneys.

"Yeah it's an appendix." The doctor explained to them, "it's actually fairly common."

He'd go on to explain that it was an organ without known functions, so it would simply be removed to prevent risk of it bursting - and yes, it looked as though it were about to - and causing further and far worse internal problems.

Not an hour later, Nick was lying in wait, terrified of the coming surgery. Blade gave up trying to feel anything in his hand, letting the younger squeeze it to the point it was turning purple.

"You won't even feel it happen." He told him. He'd been put under plenty of times for things, it wasn't anything scary to him anymore. Nick however, well...that was a different story.

It surprised some folks to think he was still so terrified of such a thing as a small surgery. With the stunts he pulled and the things he'd broken doing them, they'd have expected him to be cool with it by now. But he would rather sit through pain to know it was there than be left unconscious and up to someone else to remain stable and alive.

But something else seemed to be loaded in his train of thought, not what Blade had been expecting.

"I'm sorry…"

"Sorry? For… _what_?"

"Well that I made you worry! I know how you get, and...I just wanted to be there for you so you didn't have to feel worried for my sake."

"That's ridiculous, really.." Blade told him, leaning down to be eye level with the younger male, uncomfortably sprawled across a hospital bed. "Don't discredit yourself so much. I worry about you, you worry about me. I can't stop that from happening." He reached a hand out to stroke his dark hair, "But it's okay. You're gonna be okay. I promise."

The doors at the end of the hallway opened. Nick squeezed Blade's hand tighter, "you'll be there when I wake up again right?"

"Of course." He said - before leaning down to leave a kiss over his forehead. "You'll be okay." He reassured him.

His words remained heavy in the younger male's mind all the way up until the fluorescent lights above flickered out into darkness.

\---

First, there was darkness.

Then, there was darkness with sound.

There was a persistent beeping all around him, and an ebbing, flowing consciousness of the sound that floated around in waves. It was a thing unfamiliar to him - he didn't have an alarm clock - and yet it didn't bother him. The thought never even crossed his mind.

But time passed, somehow or another through this void where such things as time and space never felt relevant, and Nick became more aware of the persistent noise. He shifted, on what he didn't yet know, trying to deflect the sound from his right ear.

But other things started to bug him, not just the beeping; a discomfort in his abdomen, like an achey feeling; a stabbing sensation in his arm; a pinching over one of his fingers; and the feeling that someone was watching him.

To the latter, he dared to creak tired eyes open at.

"...Blade?"

Well, he was in the hospital room with him, but he wasn't exactly awake. More rather, he looked the picture of 'was very recently awake, until sleep slowly crept in and overtook him'. He sat, slumped in the chair against the curtained window, head hanging low over his chest as he dozed off, arms folded up over him.

At the croaked mention of his name, he stirred, but only just; his head and neck shifted over to a seemingly more comfortable position, before another deep, unwavering breath declared him again asleep.

Nick decided to leave him as-is - he looked like he could use the rest - and chose instead to investigate the rest of his surroundings.

All hospital rooms looked the same. Or maybe that was just him. They were always cold as fuck, the walls were plain but painted with soft blues and white to further fuel the belief in its patients that they were dead and in heaven, and the bed sheets (were they sheets even?) were decorated with tiny, insignificant floral patterns; There was a door to his right on the other end of the room, and a door in front of him where the wall around it was pushed into the main room space; And a desk, with machines and overhead cabinets, to his immediate right.

One or more of said machines were the culprit behind the persistent beeping, which, as he glanced over, appeared on a monitor to be his pulse. Just the thought that such a thing was being monitored so as to be aware he wouldn't die was enough to speed up the beating in his heart.

He tore his eyes from the screen that predicted his signs of life, in favor of exploring the things hooked up to him: a bracelet with his name on it, a needle in his arm, a taped piece of cotton on his hand where there _was_ a needle, and some circles connected to wires going through his hospital gown to different areas of his torso. He may as well have been strung up as a marionette.

He hadn't been awake for all of two minutes, but already Nick's eyelids felt heavy again. Knowing Blade was still out, he slowly let himself drift off again, the beeping of his pulse like a steady metronome, and being cancelled out as white noise once more.

\---

"I finally get to go home?" Nick asked, hopeful for his release from the hospital. The nurse remained silent as she inspected his papers, before putting the clipboard back down with a nod,

"Two PM sharp." She told him.

Nick had to stay in the confines of a hospital room for almost two days. Apparently, the surgery went well, though not as well as they initially planned - as there was a bit of a rupture that had to be managed. But, before the young male started freaking out over the medical procedures and details of it, they had reassured him all was again well, and he'd be back to himself - and back to work - in mere weeks.

As Blade took the younger male back home finally, he was glad to see he was finally relieved of his suffering. Well, he didn't show it much, but he was. Nick was more tired than anything, maybe a little achey - though the painkillers took the edge off of it. He'd be resting mostly and moving minutely for a while, until he healed up, but he was finally not screaming in pain, and the both of them could finally settle into a quiet, cozy sleep - Blade with his arms protectively around his partner as they dozed off for the night.


End file.
